Places kaleyflowers Wants to Go

Stuck in a bygone era, the oldest subterranean shopping street in Japan hides beneath the popular Asakusa district of Tokyo.

Japanese island famous for poison gas and fluffy bunnies.

A railway station takeout shop sells boxed meals in containers shaped like trains and snowmen that hold the country’s abundant regional delicacies.

With over 12,000 different species of plants, this botanical garden is Japan's oldest and most diverse.

This mesmerizingly colorful pond looks like a scene straight out of a fairytale.

Shrine to Japanese water-goblins, complete with their preserved body parts.

Transport yourself to the 1980s era of video games at this themed restaurant and bar.

Hanging over one of Japan’s “hidden valleys,” these vine bridges must be remade every three years.

Bioluminescent firefly squid light up this Japanese fishing port.

Twelve hundred stone carvings guard this off-the-beaten-path Buddhist temple.

Once the most densely populated place in the world, this island is now a ghost town.

Once a black market electronics marketplace, now an otaku shopper's paradise.

This neighborhood thoroughfare is haunted by dozens of homemade monsters.

If Hello Kitty were Mickey Mouse, this would be Disneyland.

This 700-year-old street food market features baby octopus and soy donuts.

The legendary birthplace of the Japanese maneki-neko is dotted with hundreds of lucky beckoning cats.

Colloquially known as “piss alley,” this narrow street filled with tiny bars and barbecue stands looks like it was pulled straight out of “Blade Runner.”

Tokyo’s only Vaudeville-cuckoo clock–steampunk-Victorian curio cabinet time piece.

Hot springs monkey spa in the middle of Hell's Valley.

On Japan's Tashirojima Island, cats are king.

The so-called "Statue of Liberty of Los Angeles" is on a one mutant mission to keep L.A. weird.

Modern design and unusual architecture make this mountaintop temple no ordinary Buddhist retreat.

One of Antoni Gaudí’s earliest buildings, built between 1886 and 1890 for the industrialist Eusebi Güell.

Originally a leper colony, the island is now an Armenian monastery that's home to an incredible manuscript library and eclectic museum.